


The beast is in my throat

by asemic



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Dreams and Nightmares, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming, Supernatural Elements, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asemic/pseuds/asemic
Summary: Have you heard the tales these men tell? Hickey listens and learns, but it is Irving who answers.
Relationships: Cornelius Hickey/Lt John Irving
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The beast is in my throat

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to Allana, my dearest friend, and my beta. _My heart, my heart. _And thank you to mannisbaratheon for helping me lay the pieces in order.__
> 
> Originally started for the Halloween prompts from some time ago...I suppose late is better than never?

**They’re Here**

Have you heard the tales these men tell? They’re meant for their ears alone, the knowledge seemingly scrimshawed into their sailors’ skeletons from birth. Now Cornelius Hickey belonged beside them, and carved the words in by hand.

They spoke of great tentacled beasts with arms thick as London Bridge was wide. In their world, crabs rambled along the bottom on spindly legs tall as the Terror’s mast. Worse were the ghosts under the water: Their fat black bodies looked like mirror images of the ships cutting the waves above. The men were certain they were not whales or other swimming creatures, but the first-rates and brigs and sloops following the currents. Them, yet not, because they called to you in your dreams.

Of course they never forgot the harems of women with their breasts bobbing like buoys above the surface. Looked like milky white islands of sweet meringue tipped with cherry-red nipples. These mermaids sang to the men with mercury tongues urging them to leap overboard. The seabed, if you believed them, was littered with the bones of fools. Unbutton your ears and drown.

What curious little tales they wove with gnarled and weathered fingers. At night, Hickey’s throat unlocked to spill his own liquid words, a warm and human lullaby drifting like an eddy under the creaking ships and hammocks. Meant for no one and yet-

-a door opened.

**Corruptible Mortal States**

John found that the sound grew louder when he was alone. Initially it began as a faint whisper before a bow scraped across strings to raise it into a thudding, mournful tone. Even hiding his head under the pillow did nothing to stifle the noise. So he blinked and focused on the overhead. Sometimes he watched blue dappled light toss patterns across his outstretched palms. But when he moved to capture the source in his spread fingers he met nothing but air.

He dare not ask if they heard the same. Flashes of concern would cross the faces of men he respected--the men who respected him. Then further questions and examinations to follow with no answers given. Imagine being seen and fretted over, finally worthy of attention only for it to spring from out of worry. Even worse, the eventual scuttlebutt lowered him in the eyes of the men. Tongues fluttered like disturbed water and churned up all sorts of dreadful lies. And he’d be trapped in the center of that snarled knot of rats’ tails. Tall tales and their sailors’ stories strangled John in their sodden grip.

But the song continued. So he answered with his own and beckoned his heated skin to burn a path through the boards. He wanted to feel the saltwater’s gentle pulse. So he slipped away from himself, degloved but loved.

A door slammed.

Men spoke and wood shifted while their hammocks flew into chests. John Irving remained curled and stripped bare in his ill-fitting skin.

A door slammed.

He woke.

**All Work and No Play Make Jack a Dull Boy**

Took him a bit to find his legs and stop gawking. The work exhausted Hickey but never left a gnawing emptiness stemming from a fruitless plan. Can prepare for days or pick a fat pocket and find only dust and dross. The old failsafe left him calculating how many for how much. A younger prick or a fat greying cock; were the signs there? His nose remained firmly attached, so being discerning benefited him.

It took him a bit of adjusting to stop retching and gagging when the ship heaved up then rolled down. But he managed, and belonged to the sea now. Sometimes he wandered the deck and peered over the side and looked. Watching the waves move lulled him into a contemplative mood. He saw nothing like this back home; what little water he knew churned dank and miserable as an oily nightmare. As a child he mudlarked in a dark muck that was always ready to swallow him in its grip. It sucked at his calves and stank like sewage and had broken glass for teeth. But he pushed through and found enough bits of iron and rope to earn his beer and bread. Then he discovered his cock and quick fingers served him well. Scrubbing the black from his nails and casting a wide grin, he’d set forward and left the mud for the desperate.

The clear ocean scoured him clean, its rough salt and bracing wind stripping the past from his skin.

When he peered over the side, he witnessed nothing sinister. His eyes followed only crisp blue waves with churning foam. Sometimes he waved and thought he caught himself grinning back. Even so, Hickey understood you needed to look past the surface, to where the water weighed heavy with the unseen. He moved his fingers like he was tangling long wet hair between them. He’d haul his catch up to swallow her secrets. _Teach me your songs so I can call them to me. Give me your tongue._ Yes, they spoke of beasts and beings under the waves like they were monsters. But he looked down into a world of possibilities.

**I Never Drink Wine**

Late nights meant his conviction faltered and his hand drifted. A whisper itched his forebrain, then wrapped around the rest like caul fat. The mere suggestion left him unnerved. _What if?_

Keeping his eyes opened removed the mental images and reduced his sin to simple physical sensation. His body betrayed him, so he forced his mind and soul to heel. If he kept his strokes consistent and clinical, he would not slip further into the dark. Spend _and_ wash _yet_ pray _and yet_

_what if?_ His hand slowed. _Tell me the harm._

_Our souls-_

_-are linked. You’ll have to close your eyes eventually._

His prick flagged _wood scraped_ then rose again under transforming fingers. A sailor’s work-scored palm replaced his and moved faster. Oh, feel how ready, feel how ready _John John you waited for me_ and he barely needed _open your mind_ the oil. Shame burned under the weight of Hickey’s praise, but he remained by receptive to both his thrusts and kisses until-

_Oh, God._

_Yes._

**Never Sleep Again**

He never acted upon the thoughts; each intrusive whisper he silenced.

He never acted upon the thoughts because he remained silent.

He never acted upon the intrusive whispers and remained silent.

He never acted, the whispers he silenced with balls of wax and ample prayer. Never did he allow his want of Hickey _over him_ hurt his performance in his duties _below you below bellow out your wants._ Oh, he wanted a performance with them bent in impossible positions like a rope manipulated into knots. There’d be one around his throat suspending him if he acted.

He never acted; he did not press anyone. No man fell to their knees nearby for anything but prayer and labor. Yet, in his dreams, one crawled and attended to his needs. Lately, Hickey emerged from them to follow John with shining wet lips. The door to the wardroom opened and Hickey dutifully stripped before nestling John’s soft cock in his mouth. Or John became the centerpiece taken during meals while Commander Fitzjames shared another tale. The men passed the tinned fish above him and made certain to mind his leaking prick.

He never acted though he found himself observing Hickey a bit closer, following him a bit longer each time before breaking off to another part of the ship. He never _and_ acted _yet_ -

Hickey stopped short and turned then tilted to head in inquiry. John acted. Thoughtfully, silently; any bit of hesitation John drove against the wall until they swallowed past their tongues because what if?

**It’s Alive**

“What’s found here?” Hickey continued tapping his chest with a steady, probing finger. Like his little hammer. Tap tap tat-a-tat tap tap.

“A heart.” Both Hickey’s gaze and the corner of his mouth slid to the left. The small noise he made meant he answered incorrectly. Busying his restless hand in Hickey’s hair, John took a moment to admire the strange nature of a man who seemed too clever. “My heart.”

“My heart,” Hickey repeated before licking a quick path along the inside of his lower lip. Almost reflexively John bared his throat to the preying mouth. 

“Of course I am. What else is there?” John felt the sharp grin freeze against the underside of his jaw and sank into the moment. Hickey’s thin lips were in danger of growing red and raw if he continued scraping his beard, but he didn’t stop his fevered mouthing. Each pass left little trails of spit up to his chin. “Are you hungry?”

“My heart. My heart.” He sounded like a chiming clock or a calling bird, scraping insects and croaking frogs. My heart, my heart; over and over until his voice sounded like nonsense and all words lost their meaning.

**Call in the Spirits**

“Do you believe in their tales?” He swayed in Irving’s arms like hair floating in a canal. Blood leaked pink and carried deeper through the maze of conduits leading to open water. And bodies sank, then rose again in a worse state than before.

Irving mouthed his shoulder for a moment, his breath tickling the wet path he tongued and left him chilled. “Which ones? Sailors spin so many.”

“The beasts under the waves.” Their scent lingered under the fishy burn of whale oil. So did the ache. Being unlocked meant Irving fell into an ocean of his own making and disappeared with every finger he drove into Hickey. Three this time. A pillar candle next, if he had his way. But the lieutenant swallowed like a milk-greedy kitten while kneading his fingers. All the while he choked and gagged, but he swallowed.

“The liquid-tongued mermaids.” It came out with an exhale, then transformed into a throaty laugh. Irving squeezed him tighter. “You don’t believe in what is carved on our bones?”

Like scrimshaw, Hickey recalled. What odd stories anchored their muscles together and bound their skin to their frames. The lines on a map, ropes and knots; hitches and bows and reefs and clover. Irving scented his mouth with clove oil and soaped his prick clean. Still, his ejaculate tasted like bleaching liquid and salt air. Like any man, but what else truly existed in John Irving?

“I wanted to ask my godly man. Ah, it was a foolish question,” he added dismissively while curling his buttocks back for good measure. Tug him back under or lure him somewhere by his fat prick.

“I’ve long reconciled God with the truths we hold so dear, Mr. Hickey.” John always hissed out his name. _Hih-key._ Sounded like how his voice broke before he spent, _hih hih hih_ , panting like an alley cat escaping a chase. _Hih hih hih._ Truths. The man believed in the below as fervently as above. “Becalmed ships have been driven forward once He is appeased.”

The rocking began once more, forward this time. How eager a prick became when it found the right motivation. “And you’ll be appeased once more, John.” “And you’ll be appeased once more, John.” _Hih hih hih._ “You sing like a mermaid,” _Hih-hih-hih-key_ commented while a strong palm tested his balls. If he bounced him again, he’d hear coins jangle.

“I’ll lure you to your demise. I’d pluck you from a tree and carry you in a napkin like a peach. You are the sweetest flesh.” The hand lifted him then squeezed lightly to test his ripeness. Gravity dropped him but blood rose his cock. The very weakness he exploited in other men felled him. “Can you imagine a better end?”

Him on a beach far away from muck, body free from the seaweed tangle of John Irving’s arms. “Do you try to reach for me in my dreams, John?” Even though he rolled his eyes, he reached back to force their bodies to press closer. “Kindly sing to me, John.”

“I don’t need to sing to reach you. I know my voice echoes throughout your body. You feel the rumble of a man and not the bells of maids.”

“You are,” he choked out and earned a firm squeeze. Hot breath dragged down Hickey’s spine and pulsed against _hih-hih-hih._ “God.” He braced his palms against the high bed railing and took in an exploring tongue. Together they drowned.

Somewhere, a door slammed.

**I Drink Wine (I Never Drink Wine)**

Warm wet fingers this time, and John became a slattern with her skirts raised and back pressed to a filthy brick wall. A fallen creature peered out from beneath his cracked eggshell skin with wanting eyes and ribbons round his thighs. Hickey prodded and sought and found before retreating with an equally cunning look. He wished for John to beg and squirm. Once granted, he pushed in and John’s fist reflexively slammed-

They kissed. As slow as slow as slow as softened pitch with Hickey on his lap. Their fingers laced and stretched reflexively before he guided them to his exposed prick. He took him in the dark officers’ mess where the room shrank around their bodies like roasting skin to meat beneath. A good godly man normally knelt for prayer and work. He did not swallow the spit of another in defiance of reason and law. John Irving did not push their bodies until their weight slammed-

_Fat-cocked John Irving._ His Hickey’s little song, a filthy and crude toe-tapper he passed into his ear one evening when their heads bent over a shared Bible. _Fat-cocked John Irving with his heavy hanging balls._ And Ecclesiastes slipped from his mind and the thought of the dark black hair shadowing him from groin to knee became the object of obsession. Splash it with white and leave him sweating from the exertion.

“Filthy little treasure,” _Hih-hih-hih_ -his Hickey leered into his ear after he slid in until flush. “My fat-cocked John.” And John gripped his pillow, tore at the feathers while those narrow hips slammed-

The meeting stretched into a drone of voices. Nothing of particular interest. Mere formalities over decisions and planning. But outside the cabin lingered the echoes of their previous sweetness. He and Hickey partook in an exchange of treats, nothing too formal. A gift for a gift. They licked each others’ mouths clean of the jam’s stickiness: John’s offering. He kept Hickey’s tucked close in his breast pocket: A cigarette, one of three he presented with a kind smile.

What would prevent him from seeking Hickey? Beyond the door, against the unwashed press of bodies did he work. Copper-haired and honey-tongued, pale skin illuminated from the inside. If he bent him forward and claimed him before all, from God to the skittering rats with their curled nails, what would be the punishment?

Crozier slammed his fist into the table.

No one would dare stop him.

**Corruptible States [Mortal]**

A door slammed.

John did not wake with a start, but sank deeper into his black slumber. If one stared into the sun and blinked, a blue light remained embedded, then disappeared. His thoughts of Hickey were a lingering afterimage, burned into his eyelids before fading away.

The water looked like clear sapphire and precious agate melted along the shore. The salt burned, but he refused to shy away from the friction. Instead, they surrendered and relaxed, then undulated with every thrust. Hickey moved like the waves they formed, their bodies engines, their bodies stirring the oceans’ currents. They transformed their bodies their bodies their body-

-a door slammed.

John woke up.

**They’re Coming to Get You**

_I fear a mind at rest may seek to fill the silence._

 _Fill the silence_ he scrawled in his journal. He did not know why he did, but the letters flowed so easily from his pen. “Fill the silence,” he repeated with a frown. Nearly an hour after he retired to his cabin, he found himself still hovering over the same page. The words looked like black veins across creamy skin. Fill the silence. He blinked and reached to dim the lamp and ready for sleep, but the bells sounded to raise the morning.

_May seek to fill the silence._

He peered across the table with their dog’s dinner of overly salted, gelatinous meat and greying potatoes. They’ve had how many more hours of meandering conversation punctuated by cutlery scraping plates? They’ll spin like carriage wheels until the horse finally tossed the cart.

“Will they be trapped beneath the ice?” Fitzjames’ jaw hung open for a moment with a word partially formed before snapping shut. An innumerable number of eyes slid to face him. “Our beasts below,” he clarified with his face settled into a helpful expression.

“We’re commissioned officers. They do not exist for us.” Sir John’s voice took a solid and authoritative tone to guide this conversation to an end. John shook his head while scraping a swirling pattern in the thick muck coating his plate. “And yet you disagree.”

“We climbed the ropes and looked down into the same waters. Have we forgotten our origins so completely?” The door slid open. He wished it was Hickey who entered to knuckle his arse open. Instead, Jopson presented a bottle and with a clatter of utensils, they gestured to their wine glasses.

_at rest may seek_

“You would pour from here.” John’s finger found his navel then drifted further to trace along his soft prick. “And I’ll drink from here.”

“And create a mess.” John kissed the tip of Hickey’s cock to silence his all too reasonable statement. “Ah, why not.”

They used water to experiment, lest he wasted his wine on a fancy. No matter how they poured, Hickey was proven correct. It flowed and skipped with only drips meeting John’s tongue. The rest puddled around his knees.

“Next time,” Hickey spoke slowly to stitch his words in order. John provided the right distraction by lapping the water off his skin. He tasted delicious with his tight balls smelling like John’s soap. “Next time I’ll have you on a table with tropical fruits across your body.”

John spread himself out on the wet floor and imagined. Pineapples and ruby-red arils scattered across his torso, a forest of black studded with bright colors. Hickey’s mouth crushed them before dragging sour-sweet spit along his skin. “I want this very much.”

Hickey shifted over him like a blanket while his teeth shone like a blade. Let John become pulp between them to be taken into his belly. “What would you do to reach our paradise?”

“Anything.”

_I fear a mind_.

Deft fingers meant he made short work of his task. A cunt splice named for what he’s never seen. Experienced, yes; and yet, no. Aiming for a wet place and thrusting was not an experience but a sensation. He’s never seen much of a woman beside breasts pulled over loose bindings and shadowed hair. They looked beautiful, but he no longer craved their curves.

He tasted Hickey with his sweat-salted skin. He felt the down along the nape of his neck tickle his lips while his nose met unwashed hair. Undoubtedly the man understood the sway he held over someone so powerless as John Irving. When they weren’t together John imagined they were. Their fingers twined and mouths met during John’s supervisory watch. He frigged him while listening to the men play music. During meals, he speared a limp line of asparagus and opened his mouth to a stiff prick.

Fat-cocked John Irving danced in his moon-shined dreams. Above him, the stars glimmered and reflected on the rippling water. The waves scattered and bounced the stars between them. He grinned to cast his cunt spliced net and felt the resistance while he hauled him onto the deck. The shape unwound itself and focused his mirrored gaze John’s way. He remained silent while John sang a triumphant tune, his nonsense ditty more syllables and satisfying words than a proper song.

Fat-cocked John Irving parted the net and guided wet arms around his shoulders. Copper hair draped like curtains across his face but the beautiful eyes could never be hidden. All the secrets he craved remained trapped within a thin throat and an eagerly waiting tongue. He looked like a willing sacrifice, a placid lake with nary a ripple even when John presented the knife. The pelvic fin trembled between his fingers and peeled easily under the sharp blade. No pain crossed the merman’s face. Each blink remained even and wondering while his mirrored eyes gathered the starlight.

But the beasts below bellowed and screeched in protest or sympathy. Anger.

Fat-cocked John Irving felt no pain when he plunged the needle through the fin and into his flesh. Indeed he marveled at the metal while it completed its circuit. The fin looked so odd draped against his pale hip while it twitched to life. It appeared iridescent in the hanging moonlight. When he brushed a finger along its scalloped edge, pleasure tickled along his skin. The lean body before him swayed as if he felt it too. Wet lips parted and curved into a smile.

“Is this what you crave?” The merman tilted his head to the side while he worked his narrow jaw. “What would you do for more?”

John peered at the line horizontally splitting the mer’s body across the center. The fleshy gills curving below his ribs rippled and swayed like gaping mouths eager to talk. What hid in his warm heart? John licked his lips and inched forward with his mouth open. The beasts below screeched in acceptance.

_Welcome home._

**A Disquieting Metamorphosis**

John did not wake but sank deeper into the foam. The sunflower-yellow light punctured the water’s surface, but did not warm his skin. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the distorted clink of pancake ice. Weren’t they in the heat? God, how he missed the sapphire waves and the salt he licked from Hickey’s body. Those peach-pink nipples he forced into tight points before they softened under the repeated pressure. Puffy petals he plucked between his teeth and tore from his chest before slicing his flesh with razor nails, his desire screw propellers driving them deeper into the black. And Hickey no longer begged him to stop, but accepted his fate to join the fish-cleaned bones where they belonged.

_(Disquieting; A Metamorphosis)_

He twisted his head from the left to the right and confirmed his concern. His reflection moved too slow. He saw lithographs where the subject shifted a bit and left a distortion on the exposure. Just enough of a shake to create a ghost of an image, the faintest smudge on the glass that could not be removed no matter how you wiped.

He twisted his face

-a door slammed-

He turned his head

-a door slammed-

-a door-

-a fucking door-

Diggle fell against the loose cabinet door _slammed_ pushed to it under all of John’s weight. His ladle clattered to the ground while their canned slop threatened to fall off the counter. The cabin fell to blissful silence. All eyes, Hickey’s included, focused on them.

“Enough.”

“Sir,” Diggle acquiesced and John released him to muffled coughing and furtive glances. When he turned he caught his reflection in a well-shined teapot, the grimace distorting his features into a monstrous mask. He adjusted his expression into his usual neutrality and returned to his cabin. The space filled with sound, but no doors slammed.

John Irving’s reflection remained fixed in place.

**What I Once Used to Dream I Now Dread**

A door no longer slammed. Of course not, John removed it from the hinges and swept a hand in welcome. All may come, all may join.

“I told you I would give anything to reach paradise. And you?” Irving swayed in his arms like seaweed before settling a body meeting the ocean floor. Hickey shivered even though Irving tossed heat like a brazier.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Into the water Cornelius Hickey fell, and from the water did he rise.

“Are you? What’s in here?” Irving circled above his breast before tapping to rouse his attention. “I cannot feel what’s here.”

“My heart.”

“Would you surrender it to reach paradise?”

“I have.”

The ship pitched violently against a wave and sent pans and goods clattering. Men shouted their surprise and Hickey braced himself between Irving and his bed. Yet Irving did not react. He held fast with his feet rooted to the floor. A slight smile spread across his face and Irving rapped his knuckles against the wall. Somewhere a door. Not somewhere.

“What’s banging against the ship?” Hickey cried. He felt like they arrived at a strange place hovering between sleep and wake, pitch black and bubbling from the depths of the water.

“It’s my heart, Cornelius.” John bared a toothy smile with his eyes a flat glaze.

**Sometimes Dead is Better**

During quiet moments John slipped away to the deck and peered over the side. He long ago reconciled God with the shapes and the creatures who danced below the surface. Many words have been used to describe him during the years, but nonbeliever was never among them. Nor did he fear the dark: All men held an inner glow to light their way.

Perhaps that’s why they chose him. For this expedition and for _this_. A chance to be someone grander than the limits of flesh and bones. The ocean sprayed and expelled its briny scent into his lungs. Naval men understood this world because it flowed in their blood. Suck a cut and taste the ocean; open your mouth to the driving waves and taste blood. 

John brought a tentative hand to his hip and inhaled. The water called to all of them, but only a chosen few understood. Though his bones shook with the stories it was his heart that wrote the ending. His heart beat beyond the limits of his body. 

They would think him dead, but like a song he lived on.

**Sleep? Never Again**

He still heard him.

The tapping continued even when he placed the mallet and iron down. Then the scraping followed wherever he went. Sometimes he’d rest his ear to the bulkhead and listen. Hickey’s breath held in his chest to not alert him of his location, but still he found him. 

When he knocked, John knocked back. 

_(I Dread What I Used to Dream)_

He used to retreat into his dreams and let his imagination create a new world. From mud and sand, he built what belonged solely to him. Now waves tore him further from shore and forced his head under. John broke into the safety of his dreams, all the while laughing at his plight. With a voice that rumbled the ocean floor he called to Hickey, his once-innocent cow-like eyes turned beetle-flat and cold. The man seemed to be made of the edges Hickey honed through years of surviving. 

“Like treasures we are,” John whispered. The ocean slapped Hickey’s body before those familiar arms snaked around his waist. No matter how hard he fought, the beasts below took what they desired. 

_(Call. Call. The Spirits Call.)_

When he peered over the side, he witnessed the unseen. Below the ship rested beings as tall as London Bridge and thicker than the mast. They threatened to churn up the bottom while baring their glass teeth. He swallowed a sudden gag at the thought of a waterlogged scalp releasing under the lightest tug, long wet hair turning into ropes strong enough to bind him. 

His eyes focused on a distant shape, a dark bend in the relatively blue ocean. It waved, then leapt up with its arms outstretched. They’d think him dead, but songs live on.

**This is Halloween**

You ever heard the stories?

All of them are real.

Young mids did their lessons and supervised their shifts through bleary eyes. They wanted to cry themselves to sleep from fatigue. But they remained focused on the water in the hopes of seeing those fleeting shapes they heard about. Were they tired or did the water bulge? It was no wave; it may have been a wave; they saw him wave!

Sometimes doxies strolled along the pier’s edge and heard the splashing. Mind your skirts, hike them up! Those who didn’t would be soaked through and left with an echo of laughter as their warning.

They slipped between the oceans and twirled among the fish. They raised their chests to the heat of the sun and let traders placate them with fresh fruit meant for sailors. In return, they heaved up precious jewels and gold from wrecks or iridescent shells. Below, where the sun could not reach, the crabs marched like soldiers on tree-like limbs and extended their claws in wonder. Thick arms twirled themselves like ropes around sperm whales and thought of snapping wood. 

Oh, you heard the stories, then? They’re true but told wrong.

The youngest mids are sat beside the older and told to pay no heed to the calls. They’ll hear offers from the mer. Women enticed with laughter and their ruby lips, but _he_ promised promotion. Advancement. An easy way to climb the ladder and add rank and respect to their name. Burst through to lieutenant then beyond, but the frock coat he handed over was sodden and torn apart. And your ship would be reduced pieces and strewn across the seafloor.

Women are everywhere, but rank is earned.

And the ones who hear the silver voices cry to their loneliness? The want of a rough hand caressing their cheeks? Well, this world’s got rules for you. The depths held secrets and the bones of foolish sailors. Best to keep silent, son, lest you join them.

The bodies from overturned boats float like fruit and burst as sweet between their teeth. Those doxies with their muddied skirts and mended trousers cry for help. But they wandered along the waters’ edge. They knew their place in the world: No amount of cunning and scrimping changed it.

The deep held secrets and the bones of fools. They knock and hope to hear your answer.


End file.
